Staying in the Fight (conversation with Tom Ascol)

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Sometimes I feel the weight of the world fall down on me, so heavy

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And I need a friendly voice with some good theology

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Helping us to be speaking, so I mix a manly drink, Pepsi and shoe polish

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And I hit the YouTube link, don't say hit, that sounds violent And I feel my troubles all melt away, oh

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It's your Calvinist podcast with Keith Babosky Beards and bow ties, laughs till sunrise

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It's your Calvinist podcast with Keith Babosky He's not like most

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Calvinists, he's nice He's not like most

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Calvinists, he's nice He's not like most

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Calvinists, he's nice He's not like most

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Calvinists, he's nice He's not like most Calvinists, he's nice He's not like most Calvinists, he's nice He's not like most

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Calvinists, he's nice He's not like most Calvinists, he's nice He's not like most Calvinists, he's nice He's not like most

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Calvinists, he's nice He's not like most Calvinists, he's nice He's not like most Calvinists, he's nice He's not like most Calvinists, he's nice He's not like most Calvinists, he's nice He's not like most

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Calvinists, he's nice He's not like most Calvinists, he's nice He's not like most

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Calvinists, he's nice He's not like most Calvinists, he's nice He's not like most Calvinists, he's nice He's not like most

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Calvinists, he's nice He's not like most Calvinists, he's nice He's not like most

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Calvinists, he's nice He's not like most Calvinists, he's nice He's not like most Calvinists, he's nice He's not like most

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Calvinists, he's nice He's not like most

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Calvinists, he's nice He's not like most Calvinists, he's nice He's not like most Calvinists, he's nice He's not like most

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Calvinists, he's nice He's not like most

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Calvinists, he's nice He's not like most Calvinists, he's nice He's not like most

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Calvinists, he's nice He's not like most

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Calvinists, he's nice He's not like most Calvinists, he's nice He's not like most

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Calvinists, he's nice He's not like most

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Calvinists, he's nice He's not like most

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Calvinists, he's nice He's not like most

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Calvinists, he's nice He's not like most Calvinists, he's nice He's not like most Calvinists, he's nice He's not like most

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Calvinists, he's nice He's not like most Calvinists, he's nice He's not like most

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Calvinists, he's nice He's not like most

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Calvinists, he's nice He's not like most Calvinists, he's nice He's not like most Calvinists, he's nice He's not like most

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Calvinists, he's nice He's not like most Calvinists, he's nice He's not like most

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Calvinists, he's nice He's not like most Calvinists, he's nice He's not like most

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Calvinists, he's nice I don't remember, but yeah There's two reasons to stay

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There's a bunch of people here that don't want me here

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There's a bunch of people here that don't want me here There's a bunch of people here that don't want me here

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There's a bunch of people here that don't want me here

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There's a bunch of people here that don't want me here There's a bunch of people here that don't want me here

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There's a bunch of people here that don't want me here There's a bunch of people here that don't want me here There's a bunch of people here that don't want me here

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There's a bunch of people here that don't want me here There's a bunch of people here that don't want me here

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There's a bunch of people here that don't want me here There's a bunch of people here that don't want me here There's a bunch of people here that don't want me here Did Founders Ministries start and why did it start?

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What gave you that impetus and desire to begin that? Founders began in a prayer meeting in November of 1982

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Founders began in a prayer meeting in November of 1982 It's really crazy to think about it now coming up on 42 years

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I was a student at Southwestern Seminary I had been there for not three years, maybe two years, two and a half years

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I'd been married a couple of years There were a group of students, maybe a dozen of us that had come to the

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Doctrines of Grace during my time there at that stage Curtis Vaughan was a

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New Testament Greek professor who believed these doctrines He'd been influential in my life in training me in Greek I never will forget one day in class, he's making us read

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Ephesians 1 One of the students had verse 4, so he reads

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Ephesians 1 -4 He says, Dr. Vaughan says, I know what it says

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I know it says that God chose us in Him before the foundation of the world but what does it mean?

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I'll never forget Dr. Vaughan, he said, son, it means what it says That kind of thing really landed on me

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I had Tom Nettles, my first class at Southwestern in 1979 this summer was

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Tom Nettles for Church History I kept finding myself on the wrong side of these historical debates between orthodoxy and heterodoxy

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When he'd finish describing the debates between Augustine and Pelagius or Luther and Erasmus, or Gottschalk and Hinkmar, Rimes, whoever it was and he'd say, now these represent historic

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Christian orthodoxy I remember thinking to myself, man, I'm glad we've changed that I'm glad that it got used in the orthodox and finally, about the middle of that summer,

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I go in to see him I said, Dr. Nettles, I got a question, man I said, my notes must be wrong because I've written down my notes here that you say

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Augustine was right and Gottschalk was right, and Luther was right and I said, my notes must be wrong and he said, no, your notes are wrong your notes are right, you're wrong

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I thought, okay, so that began to set me on a journey of trying to figure out, what do

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I believe and if these things are not right, what does the Bible say and I remember trying to trip

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Tom up he was Dr. Nettles to me back then but I was trying to trip him up my brother and I would get on the phone every week and we'd come up with a new strategy of, you know,

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I bet he's never thought about John 3, 16 we'd bring those things to him so over the course of two years,

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I and a lot of other guys about a dozen, came to the Doctors of Grace and there was a man who was pastoring here on the east coast of Florida by the name of Ernie Reisinger and Ernie had been a construction worker and actually started a construction company in Pennsylvania, in Carlisle, Pennsylvania and God had saved him in the

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Navy and just a great story his testimony is great you can read it in his biography by Jeff Thomas that Banner of Truth published but Ernie came down to Florida and began to pastor after he retired from the construction world pastored this church in Pompano Beach and led, it was a

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Southern Baptist church led that church to see and believe the Doctrines of Grace and discovered that James Boyce, Pettigrew Boyce was the first and founding president of Southern Seminary the

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Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, now in Louisville and that Boyce had written a systematic theology or it actually consisted of his notes that were put together

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I have to interrupt you only to say this is sitting on my desk, the abstract of systematic theology

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I just talked about this on the show two weeks ago okay, yeah this is what you're referring to, right?

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right, and the reason that that book's known today is because of Ernie and Fred Malone who had been a student at Reformed Theological Seminary in Jackson and had discovered one of these old volumes in an old used bookstore by Boyce and Ernie read it and then

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Ernie organized it getting reprinted and so the church there in Pompano and other places gave money to reprint it and Ernie started going to Southern Baptist Seminaries and saying, hey look, this is a systematic theology written by the founder and first president of Southern can

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I give these away to your graduating students? and so all the presidents of all the six Southern Baptist Seminaries plus Mid -America said, sure, this would be great we want our students to have a systematic theology by one of our early

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Southern Baptist leaders and so he was able to do that for two or three years well, I wasn't a graduating student but I remember in 1980

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I had enough demerity to go up to him and say I'm not graduating, can I get a copy anyway? and he gave me one and it was just mind -blowing to me to read it and he was able to continue to do that for two or three years until finally one of the presidents of the seminary actually read the abstract and said, what are we doing?

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we don't believe this and so they wouldn't let him back on campus and anyway,

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I got endeared to Ernie through some providential things so he wrote a letter to me, to Tom Nettles and to about half a dozen other guys saying, what should we do?

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I'm getting all these contact from students who are reading this book and believing yeah, this is a good biblical understanding of the doctrine of salvation what should we do?

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so he organized a meeting right outside of Dallas in Euless, Texas at a Holiday Inn on a

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Saturday in November 1982 we spent the first half of that day in prayer and there were seven men, seven of us and then the second half of the day we were reading scripture, praying and trying to plan, what do we do?

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we decided to have a conference and Tom Nettles at that point had gone to Mid -America

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Seminary in Memphis and so he found a campus, Rhodes College that became, I think,

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Southwest College later on, Southwest University but Dr. Nettles was able to make arrangements for us to rent the facilities there for a conference next summer we had about 100,

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I think maybe 111 men that showed up for that first conference we couldn't believe that there were that many that would be in the doctrines of grace among a primarily

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Southern Baptist context and so from there, we decided we needed to do this again and from there,

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Founders Ministries emerged over decades now with a variety of different ministries of publishing and holding conferences and a website, a journal and now the

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Institute of Public Theology that is in its third year as well here in Cape Coral Yeah, we had...

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Oh, I know his name but it's the president of the Institute of Public Theology or the... The dean, yeah,

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Scott Callaham Yeah, Scott, I know and you know, it's funny as I text him several times we've talked several times since the show

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I know his name Scott, when you watch this I apologize, it just went out of my mind but yeah, we're supportive or try to support the

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Institute of Public Theology we think that's a wonderful thing you guys are doing and encouraging people

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Also, you mentioned Fred Malone he was at that first conference I went to too The Baptism of Disciples Alone is his treatment on Credo Baptism and was very helpful to me

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Yeah, that's right So, I do have a... This raises a question and I remember at least

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I think I do the first conference I went to it was called the Southern Baptist Founders but then it became the

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Founders Is that correct? Am I remembering that right? Yeah, well, you're almost right The first title that we came up with was the

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Southern Baptist Conference on the Faith of the Founders Okay, okay It was pretty long

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Yeah, that was the initial title Gotcha, gotcha

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And so now it's just founders, right? People who are looking for you Yeah, we sent ministries because it became far more than a conference after several years

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Yeah And you guys, I mean, you guys publish you guys are doing all kinds of work Dr. Renahan is working with you guys now and I have his commentary on the

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First Confession I mentioned our church holds to the First Confession and we have his commentary there on that This was his second confession that he did

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They're both excellent, excellent treatises Yeah And that does lead me to a question because I know a lot of my viewers would want to know this and that is the relationship that you guys have because I'm assuming the founders would support what would be known as a 1689

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Federalist position Is that correct? Right Okay What is your relationship with the progressive

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Covenantal side? And the reason why I ask is because our church would probably more align with that on certain things, certain doctrines

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And, you know, Dr. Wellam, Dr. Gentry's book Kingdom Through Covenant has been helpful in helping us nail down a few things

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How do you feel about the distinction there? And, I mean, do you think the divides are impassable?

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Impassable, interesting word Not without passions, but yeah So go ahead and what are your thoughts?

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Yeah, no, man We love progressive Covenantalists We believe you're on the right road and very soon you'll get there

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So, yeah, we're just waiting for you at the station No, we're so close on so many things

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David Schrock actually is one of the instructors, professors for the Institute of Public Theology David's very convinced of progressive

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Covenantalism We had him in last week to teach systematic theology And, you know, we have some differences but as we talked through those differences interestingly enough he was here for a

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Sunday I'm preaching through Genesis and so I was preaching on the first Sabbath day when he was here

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And so we had lunch together in my home afterwards and we had a very fruitful conversation And I think

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I'm pretty sure I told him in that conversation or in a subsequent one when we continue the discussion that if everyone were to believe what he believes about these things

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I would die happy And I would never argue with anybody ever again because the concerns that he has are right

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And I have, you know, for myself we all have to have guardrails with our positions or else if we're not careful some of the apparently necessary conclusions necessary deductions can take us beyond the

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Scripture And so we need to be careful that we don't go beyond the Scripture Calvin talked about a wise ignorance or a wise silence, you know that we need to be willing to have to just say,

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OK, I don't know I'm not going to speak because the Bible doesn't speak And that doesn't mean systematic theology shouldn't be done

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It has to be done But we have to do it humbly And in a similar way the way he described his progressive covenantalism in approach to the

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Lord's Day was so good It was so wonderful You know, again, we would have some differences at the foundation as to why we might approach the

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Lord's Day the way we do But practically speaking there was not much difference in his understanding and my own understanding in what we teach our church here

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So, you know, great friends Steve Willem, don't know him well but all

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I know of him I love and appreciate Never met Ken Gentry at all but have others that would identify themselves in that camp

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And I think that, man we're close enough to be allies Let's have our debates but they ought to be fraternal in -house debates

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Amen And yeah, it's interesting sometimes when I'm talking to people about the

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Lord's Day because I would say I'm a Lord's Day, not Sabbatarian but Lord's Day advocate And sometimes in that conversation

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I would say sometimes it feels like it's just words And I know it's more than just words But sometimes it feels like it's just how we're defining because, you know, we worship on the same day

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We do generally the same things on the same day And we recognize that day as being distinct from the other days as the day

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Christ rose from the dead and those things And so there are so many places as I said We divide over so many other things

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Not us, but I mean the church in general And so I'm always trying to find ways that we can unite rather than continue to subdivide into oblivion

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Right Amen, I'm with you And I'm happy to have knock -down, drag -out debates with brothers that understand that we're really brothers and we agree on so much

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So let's debate these things we don't agree on but recognize this is not anything divisive It's genuinely

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I grew up with two older brothers and, you know, I understand those kind of fraternal debates and I'm happy to have them

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But it's different than debating a Roman Catholic or debating a Muslim or debating a, you know, a pagan

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I mean, we're not talking about that We're talking about brothers and we're not even talking about broad evangelical brothers We're talking about brothers that are really close on so many things

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So as long as we keep that in mind we can have wonderful fruitful conversations Amen, amen

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I had a Dr. Sam Waldron was on my show about three or four months ago

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It was, I guess, February now So several months ago And he was very much the same We kind of had a similar conversation about the

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Sabbath He's a very strong Sabbatarian What's funny is I did a debate on the Sabbath with a Presbyterian And two days before the debate

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Sam Waldron was brought into town to give his lectures on the Sabbath for three days So I got to sit under his lectures before debating

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So I felt like at least at least I had done, you know all I could to hear the other side

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And he's a great brother And I was very encouraged by a lot of what he had to say as well

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So, well, since we mentioned you know, where areas we divide and areas we come together

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A lot of people are pushing for division with the

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SBC But you stand strong as part of the SBC or at least have continued to stand strong And when

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I asked Twitter and Facebook Hey, what are some of the questions that you'd like to hear me ask

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Dr. Askell One of the ones that kept coming up was about affiliation with the SBC And they all kind of came

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I'm not going to read every question But it all kinds of comes down to One, is staying in the fight with the

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SBC worth it? Two, when is it time to get out of the fight? Or is there ever a time to get out of the fight?

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And, you know, what's the future look like for the founders? And I think that maybe pulls all those questions into something that you might be able to respond

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Yeah, well, and those are questions I get all the time So I'm not surprised people would raise them in this context

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First, let me just say Founders Ministries Not all of our board members are

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Southern Baptists Certainly not all of our teachers and IOPT are Southern Baptists Not all of our authors are

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We're much broader than the SBC So we're Baptists We're confessionally

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Baptists But our roots, my roots are in the Southern Baptist Convention And that would be true probably for most of the people that are more intimately involved

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But certainly not all Not by any stretch of the imagination And that's fine That's fine

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So founders is not The future of founders is not tied to any one association or convention

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The SBC The reason that I can stay in and fight even when

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I lose votes as I have done pretty consistently the last several years is understanding what the

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SBC is and what it's not I think for many and I say this as one of whom it was true in my younger life

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The SBC becomes a significant part of your individual or your church's identity

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And I grew up in Texas My parents were Southern Baptists So I was raised in a

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Southern Baptist church All I knew I went to college And since God was calling me to be a pastor even at that age

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I had a roommate I remember my last year at college who was a big inner varsity guy And he gave me a book that he said it really changed his life

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It was so good for him And he wanted me to have a copy So he gave it to me I didn't even look at the title of the book that I recall

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But I looked to see who published it And it wasn't Convention Press And since it wasn't Convention Press I thought, eh, you know

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It can't be that important And I just stuck it on a shelf Well, it wasn't until about three years later I was in seminary that I realized that book was

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Knowing God by J. I. Packer And I just completely ignored it, discounted it because it wasn't

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Southern Baptist Press So that was my identity and way of thinking, too I ministered in College Station and then

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Dallas -Fort Worth for several years before moving to South Florida And it's funny, Keith When I was in Dallas You know, that was back in the 1980s,

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I guess 1980 to 86 or so I was known as a rabble -rouser

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In fact, my wife found a letter that I had written to Southwestern Seminary while I was still a student at Texas A &M complaining about the salaries of professors at Southwestern Seminary being insufficient and the presidential mansion at Southwestern I mean, it's a funny letter reading it

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She found it like two weeks ago or so and showed me and we had a good laugh about it But there, in that heavy

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SBC identity context I was seen as, you know one who's kind of an outlier and likes to stir up trouble

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When I moved from there to South Florida I became like a denominational loyalist

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I remember after like the first or second year in this church I had a young man come to me He was the son of a deacon

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One of the only young By young, I think he was probably in his 40s at that time And he came to me and he said

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Are you trying to make this a Southern Baptist church? Because I had referred to some things that were going on in the SBC And I said

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No, it is a Southern Baptist church I'm trying to make it a better one And he said This is a Southern Baptist church They just had no idea

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And so South Florida context to be SBC or not doesn't really matter

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So understanding that the association we have with other Southern Baptist churches in the

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SBC is voluntary It doesn't impinge upon our autonomy at all It's not our identity

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We cooperate where we can We're grateful to be able to cooperate where we can But the

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SBC doesn't dictate to us And it is not where we get our identity as a church

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We're happy to cooperate where we can And we want to see the SBC be better than it is

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It has been good in the past And there's some good things going on today But it's being steered by concerns that are godless

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And I'm not talking about people in the SBC being godless necessarily But outside the SBC that want the

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SBC to be a tool for godlessness And if you want a commentary on this with documentation just wait until Megan Basham's book her book drops at the end of July Shepherds for Sale I've read it

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It's well documented It is a devastating analysis of how deep pockets outside Christianity have tried to co -opt

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Christian organizations and churches the largest of which in the evangelical world is the SBC in order to steer those organizations and churches to accomplish leftist agendas

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And that's no conspiracy theory That's fact And the facts are documented very readily in this forthcoming book

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So because of that I don't want to see the SBC be used like that It's not going away

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All the good churches can leave tomorrow And it's still going to continue on And it will become increasingly like the

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PCUSA or the United Methodist Church And I don't want to see that happen So our church participates

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And I try to fight for making it better What's the name of her upcoming book again?

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I don't know Shepherds for Sale And I think the subtitle is something like how evangelical leaders have been co -opted by large money donors or something like that But she documents how entities like the

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ERLC the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission Southeastern Seminary Campus Crusade National Association of Evangelicals others have had money poured into them by influencers who want to get them to be silent on things or to say things in a certain way that will steer the culture down this horrible road of wicked ideologies and to do so with increasing speed

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Well that's really scary and something that we all need to be aware of So I look forward to reading that book and maybe having an opportunity to talk to her

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I'd love to do that We had her on the Sword and Trowel podcast that we do here at Founders several weeks ago and she gave 30 -40 minutes just kind of specifically about the

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SBC that's in her book and it's eye -opening so I would encourage you to get her on your podcast

32:17

Amen Hey, I just want to mention and you're in Florida I'm in Florida so you'll understand the weather just got really bad so in the event that I blank out that just means that we lost power and hopefully it doesn't happen but I don't want you to think

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I just walked away from the conversation It's just really loud right now and I can hear it But let me correct one thing,

32:38

Keith I'm in Florida You're in South Georgia That's true Hey, I agree I'm in Jacksonville, Florida which is basically the southern tip of Georgia That's where we're at Yeah You don't get to Florida until you drive about five hours south

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You know what's funny is we are in the safest area it seems for hurricanes and I say that hoping

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I don't eat my words soon but you know just because of the way Florida is shaped we get hurricane winds sometimes but you guys get them coming through and across and speaking of that your church was damaged a few years ago

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How are things going with that fixing all the problems and things

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Has it gone well? Well, you know it's a work in progress still We're almost two years out

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Hurricane Ian blew through and hit us dead on It was just a direct hit and massive winds and rain and flooding

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Just this week we have come to what we think is an agreement with our insurance company but only after threats of lawsuit and going through all kinds of negotiations with them and we're settling for several hundred thousand dollars less than the damages that we assessed

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That's kind of a common story around here and that's true for me personally with my own house as well We're still not settled with our personal insurance carrier

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We're trying to negotiate that two years out So God willing we'll at least get that chapter closed and have some resources to begin the repair work that needs to be done

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We patch things together and God's people were so kind We had generosity poured out upon us by churches and individuals literally from around the world and that helped us instantly because we had immediate needs that had to be taken care of and God has helped us with that So I wish our insurance company had kept their end of the deal but we're not alone in those kinds of negotiations

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So God willing if it goes through this week then over the next few weeks we'll be able to make the needed replacements and repairs that have been delayed

34:45

Amen Amen Yeah, we could do a whole other podcast on Florida and wind insurance probably because we've had our own conversations with our with our insurance company about those problems

34:57

So it's not fun when you live in basically the eye of the storm every year Right, that's right

35:03

Yeah Well I have some some kind of fun questions I'd like to ask you

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I mean we've talked about some serious things and I've appreciated your being forthright on many things and but I also enjoy having some fun on the show and I had a few people just throw out some great questions and if you're okay

35:21

I'd like to just keep you on for a little bit more and ask you some some fun things Number one are you a

35:27

Glock or 1911 man? That's a Glock Yeah, I'm a Glock I'm trying to switch over to completely

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Glock platform because I've been very eclectic through the years which means whatever was the cheapest and available is what

35:41

I would try to get So I'm trying to just get on the Glock platform exclusively Amen Hey, I that's great

35:49

I actually bought a Ruger I think it's called a P9 but it's a rifle that holds

35:56

Glock magazines so it's a nine millimeter rifle that I can shoot my Glock 19 mags through it so it's pretty cool

36:02

Yeah, I like that So what has been your most memorable book that you've published through Founders Press?

36:10

The one that you would say is I guess I don't want to say most proud of because I'm sure you're very proud of all of them but something that you would say

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I'm so glad we were able to get this out Man, yeah it's tough to pick one

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You know Jim's book that I just showed you on the 1689 is a masterpiece

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It's going to be it already is a classic and it will be for years Fred Malone's book on the

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Baptism of Disciples Alone was one of the earlier books we published and it has it will have a long shelf life as well

36:42

Al Mohler said it was the most significant book on Believer's Baptism written in the last 200 years and I think that's true

36:49

Jim's son Sam Renahan wrote a great book as well on 1689

36:57

Federalism The Mystery of Christ Then I'd have to put in this one as well The first book that we published was by Richard Barcellas It was called

37:06

In Defense of the Decalogue and that was in the early days of some of these debates they weren't all carried out on a high level but they were important debates about New Covenant Theology and Covenant Theology and so Richard wrote this book and it's a long story of how we published it but anyway by God's grace we published it it was his first book it was our first book to publish

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I think we'd done a little pamphlet that I wrote before that and then from that because the debate continued to evolve and new arguments new insights were being shared back and forth and it got to be on a higher plane so it wasn't so acrimonious among those who were debating and Richard was part of that I begged him and other people begged him would you reprint it because we went out of print and he said no because some of the arguments need to be refined and the

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New Covenant Theology guys have developed some ideas that I want to respect and so we went back and forth for years and years so finally finally

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I forget how I did it but I shamed him into you gotta do this you gotta do this so he's working on it and in the process realized you know what

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I'm doing here is a new book it's a new book and so that book became Getting the Garden Right and it is it is a wonderful book so there's a lot more but certainly certainly certainly those would be at the top of the list and there wouldn't be left out amen well

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I appreciate you mentioning all those and you mentioned Sam Renahan Jim's son

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I just so you know and maybe you can share that I call him the the lesser and greater Renahan's so so and that's in no way to be offensive but it's like you have the greater and lesser you know so so Sam is the lesser

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Renahan not not not certainly not an intelligence but just an age yeah the the lesser all right so when it comes you mentioned baptism of disciples alone what is your favorite pedo -baptist argument to dunk on pun intended that's that's that's the person who asked

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I just thought I like the way they worded the question so like what's what's when they make this argument you just love to dunk on it or or or what's your favorite one to destroy that's well you know the

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Westminster confession is is lovely to quote about the regulative principle of worship that things ought not be done they're not prescribed in the word of God and I say where's this infant baptism you speak of prescribed so I think that's a pretty forceful argument it's not that they're not they don't have responses to it but I've not heard one yet that's been satisfying amen amen actually

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I I've done several debates public debates on on on infant well not several

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I've done a couple of debates on infant baptism but the very first one I did was with an Anglican and that was one of the arguments

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I made was I said because he I thought well it's a long story the the man was sort of wishy -washy and I thought he was going to make the argument from the

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Presbyterian position but he didn't he was coming from an Anglican position so when I brought up the regular principle it didn't really apply to him so my as part of my debate it was a little off because it didn't really apply to what he was saying but but still it was the argument

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I made I said if this is the regular principle says we do what's prescribed this is not prescribed therefore how do you come to this conclusion and it didn't really work because it was yeah we were a little confused on where we were coming from so all right so this one's always fun you may or may not know but I sort of have a somewhat of a funny reputation online as being the king of the amillennialists and and I and I and it's a joke because I I'm certainly not

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I'm not published in that area it's just something that happened on Twitter I wore a crown people called me the king of the amillennialists and it was a joke but are you would you identify yourself in the camp of amillennialism or postmillennialism or are you still a premillennialist

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I say still because most Baptists at least start as premillennialists so are you willing to say some guys aren't willing to say and it's okay if you're not no

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I'm not a premillennialist I was but I didn't know it that's just was raised so I described myself now as a a postmillennialist with a low level of assurance you know so the optimistic amillennialism

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I think is a kissing cousin to postmillennialism and I'm happy in either one of those worlds in terms of how you look at specific things but I'm looking for the latter day glory

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I'm looking for an outpouring of God's spirit that day when the knowledge of the

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Lord will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea and I think that's going to happen

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I think I think we're going to see a great revival I don't think I used to describe it this way after I read

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Johnathan Edwards when I was younger that I'm a revolutionary postmillennialist not an evolutionary postmillennialist because when

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I was growing up postmillennialism was associated with liberalism and I knew the world's not getting better and better every day in each and every way but I do believe that through the work of God's spirit we will see a multitude come in before our

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Lord returns amen these two questions they're going to go back to back and again

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I know there could be longer questions in fact I'm going to take a second to mention a book recently

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I had the opportunity to have a preview of the book dear Titus that's coming out you guys are produced had an opportunity to read that and write an endorsement for it

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I'm very thankful to be asked to do that but this question sort of goes along the line of that and that's the question of what advice would you give to young men aspiring to pastoral ministry and then the second question is if what are the best ways to encourage a husband if you're the wife of a pastor

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I know that's two questions but it sort of kind of goes together with the idea of encouragement and we've been talking about fighting a good fight you helping me you were such an encouragement to me it's 2024 things have changed in 20 years things have changed in 40 years what are some of the advice that you would give today that might be unique to today well what

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I say to every Christian who asks me for this kind of general counsel is man find a healthy church and build your life around it and if that requires move move you know if you but just do it there's nothing more significant in a practical day in and day out basis day out day and day out basis than to do that so I would say something similar to a young man that aspires to the ministry find a faithful church with faithful elders not perfect elders because they don't exist not a perfect church because it doesn't exist but faithful elders and go and submit yourself to them and serve in that congregation build your life around it you know if you can do some formal theological education that's wonderful do that but that will not replace what you can gain in a faithful church that's being led by faithful elders just being a part of a church like that breathing the air seeing the rhythms of life being a part of the relationships is is for the most part and it's very very valuable so I would encourage every young man to attempt to do that and if you can do that in a context where there's a good opportunity for theological education then man all the better but don't sacrifice a church for something that you think might prepare you better than a church to engage in pastoral ministry in terms of what can a wife do well early in our marriage my wife when she married me

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I was already a pastor and so she knew what she was getting into in one sense and of course in another sense no pastor's wife ever knows what she's getting into in that role but we determined early on that her number one job was keeping me in the ministry so she didn't have to play the piano though she did at times or she didn't have to do children's work though she's done that at times or anything else keep keep me in the ministry and that's because there's a lot of trials and a lot of temptations and temptations and a lot of Monday mornings you feel like quitting in pastoral ministry and I found that the older I've gotten the better that's gotten but nevertheless it's still there lots of discouragements you know it's a it's a reality that when you know when a carpenter goes to work he works with hammer and nails and saws and those are tools when a pastor goes to work he works with his heart and when a carpenter breaks a hammer you can go get another hammer and you can but when a pastor breaks a heart and sees it wounded it's got to be healed you know you can't you got to work anyway you can't stop working and learning to work learning to minister with a bruised heart with a broken heart can be hard and a wife is in a good position to help her husband with that.

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One of the best things I think that has happened in our marriage is my wife has become just an exceptional theologian she's not going to write any systematic theology books but in terms of practical theology she is really good and she's learned and as she has learned and she's developed her own theological thinking and I don't want any wife of a pastor to think oh my goodness this means you know

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I got to memorize Wayne Grudem's textbook. We're not talking about that. I'm talking about living in the word living among the people of God and applying the word consistently over time and she's done this and she's done that in such a way that she doesn't let me get away with things that I used to be able to get away with.

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You know a temptation among pastors or at least myself when I was in seminary was you know

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I talk about the Greek or the Hebrew or this theological category or that and she'd be intimidated because she didn't have any of those tools.

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She didn't have any references but as I hopefully have grown somewhat wiser and she's grown in her own understanding of the word of God and she can recognize when

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I'm blowing smoke and call me on it or whenever I'm cutting corners and call me on it or when

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I'm forgetting things that we both believe and can help me remember. So this is true.

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I say this all the time to Christians in general. You know the best thing you can do for your husband as a wife is to become the most godly

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Christian you can become. Best thing you can do for your wife as a husband is become the most godly Christian you become and as a

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It doesn't matter if you become increasingly godly then the rest is application.

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How do you apply true godliness in marriage, in child rearing, in your vocation?

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Go hard after Christ. There's no substitute for that and you can pick up along the way from people that are more experienced than you and maybe have some wisdom in areas through trial and error or through study or just giftedness.

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You can pick up in But those insights on application will do you no good if the root of the matter is not in you and you're not cultivating that into a life of true godliness.

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So I appreciate the question from any wife that wants to encourage her pastor husband because we all need it but recognize as you are being faithful to Christ and you're growing in grace yourself, you're serving your husband well.

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Brother, I can't think of a better way to draw this show to a close as we're talking about fighting against for the faith.

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We're talking about staying in the fight and what you just said about growing in godliness. I'm sitting here, I'm just like,

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I'm like, I needed this sermon today and I don't know if you've written that in a book or if you've preached that in a sermon, what you just said.

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But I think every pastor and every pastor's wife would benefit from the last two minutes of what you just said.

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And so I don't, I really don't want to, I don't want to try to add anything else to it. I think that was a great encouragement.

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And so I just like to end by saying, I'm so grateful to you for the founders, for all that you guys have done in my life, in the life of our church.

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Sovereign Grace Family Church exists in one way because you encouraged me to continue fighting the good fight.

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So thank you. Thank you for all that you do. Thank your family for all they do and your wife and for giving your ministry, for giving us this time today.

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We're very grateful. Thank you, brother. Praise the Lord. Appreciate all you're doing and just keep pressing on.

49:50

Amen. Thank you. And I want to thank all you guys for being with us today for this show.

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I hope it was an encouragement to you. And again, this might be something if you're, if you're not a pastor, maybe share this with your pastor.

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It might be an encouragement to him or with or to his wife. But again, thank you for being a part of the show today.

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Thank you for listening. If you want to support the show, you can do so by going and buying a tiny Bible or just supporting us by going to buymeacoffee .com

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slash your Calvinist and your Calvinist podcast. You can make a donation if you want to. If you enjoyed this video, make sure you hit the thumbs up button.

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If you didn't enjoy it, go ahead and hit that thumbs down button twice. Thank you again for listening to your

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Calvinist podcast. My name is Keith Foskey and I've been your Calvinist. May God bless you.